No Home for the Weary
by bookwormgrl
Summary: Mary makes a decision with broad ramifications. Slight spoilers for S2 and major angst.


_A/N: I don't want to give too much away up front, but this one-shot came to me out of nowhere when I was writing a review for a fantastic, but quite angsty, story of OrangeShipper's "Driving Out the Dark". Even though I really should be working on the next chapter of "Doubt and Resolution", I just couldn't shake off this story. So here it is with the warning that it's dark and involves non-M/M relationship…so be forewarned it's not everyone's cup to tea!_

There was a moment in the drive, when the trees parted and Downton Abbey was revealed to its visitor, which always caught Mary's breath. Or it had done since Downton had ceased to be her home.

She sighed, pulling the woolen collar of her coat close against the chill of the late autumn afternoon. It was not much past three, and already the walls of the Abbey were bathed in the reds and oranges of the dying day. Her eyes wandered over the grounds that she knew so well, to the tree-shaded hilltop where she had spent many a summer afternoon reading or merely seeking the solitude that could not be found indoors.

So many memories were tied to this land, to this estate, that Mary barely knew who she was outside of its context. But that was the way of things, wasn't it? To only understand the worth of a thing…or of a person...once it was gone.

Mary shook off such thoughts. There was no use pining for past days. There was only this. The reality that was, and learning to deal with it while retaining some sense of dignity, of _sanity_.

The car came to a slow stop at the entrance to the large house, and Mary took a calming breath, drawing on the resolve that drove her now. She hesitated only a moment when the door was opened, carefully stepping out of the vehicle while her eyes drifted lovingly over the stone edifice of the building.

Lowering her gaze, she broke into a warm smile at the sight of a familiar figure waiting to receive her. "Carson!"

The butler, who had begun to show the wear of time, broke into a rare smile in return. "Lady Mary, as always we are delighted to see you at Downton Abbey."

Mary lightly laid her gloved hand on the arm of the now elderly man. It pained her to see the stoop of his frame and the slight falter in his step. He had been such a figure of surety when she was a child, that it seemed impossible that time should touch him. And yet, even he could not escape the inevitable, and she wondered how much longer he would be able to serve before being retired to a cottage on the estate. A wave of sadness overcame her at the thought of the proud butler left to spend his days alone, no longer in the service of others and only waiting for the final release, and she felt her hand tighten on his arm.

"How do you fare at Crawley House, mi' lady?" Carson asked politely.

Mary hesitated a moment. Her residence at Crawley House was both a blessing and a curse. Without it, she would have been quite without a home. Oh, she could have taken up residence with one of her sisters, she supposed – although the thought of living on the charity of Lady Edith Strallan was insupportable. Sybil's bohemian lifestyle would have better suited, but London no longer had any appeal for Mary. So the offer of Crawley House had been a welcome one, if bittersweet. It was a home, but only a dim shadow of what felt like her true home and a constant reminder of how much had changed over the past ten years.

"Very well, thank you," she replied lightly, and if Carson saw through the lie, he showed not a hint of any doubt.

"I'm very glad to hear it. We certainly do miss you here at Downton Abbey," he finished affectionately. Perhaps it was a bit indelicate of the butler, but he could be forgiven many things, especially a distinct preference for the late Earl's oldest daughter.

"And I miss you as well," Mary replied warmly with a conspiratorial smile.

They stepped inside the grand entryway together, and Mary thought, perhaps for the last time.

"Lord Grantham is waiting for you in the library, mi' lady."

As he stepped forward to announce her, she asked lightly, "And Lady Grantham?"

Her turned to her with kind eyes, "In town, for the day."

"Ah…thank you, Carson."

She paused a moment, taking a calming breath, before stepping forward into what had been the domain of the Earls of Grantham for at least four generations.

The current Earl rose from a familiar desk to greet her, and Mary nearly flinched at the whirlwind of emotions that hit her in his presence. Time and war had only made him more handsome in her eyes. He was thinner than he had been before leaving for Flanders, and a thin scar-once red but now silvery white-cut across his right cheek. But his ice blue eyes still shown with intelligence, albeit with more reserve than before.

"Cousin Mary," he began politely, with a nod of dismissal to the butler.

"Matthew." Her answer was more clipped, the business at hand robbing her of her normal instinctive cordiality.

He raised an eyebrow to her abruptness, motioning her to a nearby couch. She gingerly lowered herself, holding his gaze as he sat himself across from her in her father's favorite leather chair.

Mary recovered slightly, "Please forgive my abruptness. How is Lady Grantham?" It still sounded strange to call anyone other than her mother or her Grandmamma by that name. But those two formidable women were no more, and only _she_ had the right to be so called now.

Matthew smiled tightly. "Lavinia is well, thank you. I'm sorry that you missed her, she drove to Ripon for the day."

Mary hid her smirk. _Like hell you're sorry_, she thought unladylike, but said nothing more than asking politely after his mother. Matthew visibly relaxed upon moving past the touchy subject of his wife.

"My mother is quite well and still having a wonderful time terrorizing Dr. Clarkson."

"I'm surprised that he hasn't gone into retirement to find refuge from the storm!" Mary responded with a chuckle. The battles between Mrs. Crawley and the doctor had become legendary in town, providing almost as much amusement for its residents as the battles of old between the same Mrs. Crawley and the old Dowager Countess.

"Strange you should say so, for he approached me not last week about the prospect of retiring within the year. It shall be difficult to replace him." Another sign of the inevitable changes that had overcome them all, peers and common man alike. In a few years, Mary thought, nothing will be left of what I knew.

That thought fortified her as broke through the normal niceties of their conversation.

"I'm leaving, Matthew."

There, it was said. For a long moment, it hung between the two of them, as his struggle to understand shown on Matthew's face.

"Leaving? What do you mean?"

"I'll be vacating Crawley House...and leaving here, leaving England, by the end of the month."

Matthew stood in shock, "The end of the month? What on earth for?"

"Really, Matthew, do you have to ask?"

He turned from her, his face a conflict of emotions.

"I've spoken to my aunt in New York, and we have arranged everything from my passage over…to my travels once in America." It all came out in a rush now. "I'll eventually make my way to San Francisco. Apparently, it's quite a modern city, very up and coming."

"San Francisco?" Matthew was still in a daze, clearly staggered by her news. He lowered himself back into his chair, wincing only slightly at the old war wounds that made him feel an older man than he was.

She didn't answer, only waited for the inevitable questions to come.

"Mary…I don't understand why…to make such a rash decision, " he struggled to continue. Finally, after pausing, he continued lowly, "If this is because of…_that_…I promise you, Mary, that you need not fear…"

"Fear?" She raised a carefully crafted eyebrow at his choice of words.

"I know that I took advantage of your friendship…and your situation." Mary looked away, not daring to meet his eyes.

Yes, her _situation_. Soiled property. She should be grateful her cousin had been willing to give her a home and his protection after the shame her public humiliation had brought upon the family. It had been one thing for her dalliance with Pamuk to be fodder for the society rumor mill in London, another when it was splashed in the newspapers.

There was a small part of her that still believed that the shame had been partly to blame for the unexpected death of her father, his proud heart unable to bear the slur upon his ancient family name. Her mother had only been a shadow of herself after his death, fading slowly away to her own quiet end within a few years. It was this that truly shamed Mary now, not that original dalliance that had brought so much sorrow into her life.

And thus had Matthew been elevated to his current position. And with him, little Lavinia had become Countess of Grantham.

It had been horribly awkward at first, living in the Dowager House with her rapidly declining mother, watching the happy couple succeed to the roles her mother and father had played with such distinction. Each sign of their mutual affection had eaten away at her soul, and it had been a torturous challenge to smile and banter like her old self in their presence.

But time, and the further reduction in her circumstances with the death of her mother, had made it easier. At least for a while.

Her removal from the Dower House after the death of her mother had further removed her from the daily ritual of the Abbey, and she had become a less frequent presence at the dinner parties held by the young couple.

It had only been in the last couple years that the situation between herself and the family at the Abbey had shifted. Comfortably ensconced at Crawley House after removing from the Dower House with the death of her mother, she had settled in the life of a slightly notorious spinster. She had seen the age of thirty come and go and was mostly at peace with the solitary life she had been left with.

Her lonely life had been filled with the little amusements that she could come up with. Books. Music concerts. An odd trip to London for the theatre. And long walks that began in the morning and ended only when the sun began to fade in the sky.

It was on one of these walks that she had encountered Matthew, clearly struggling with matters of his own. They had not spoken of them, but had enjoyed a renaissance in their companionship of old.

There had been more walks, and with time, more openness between them. At least to some extent – they never talked of their own past relationship or the scandal that consumed Mary during the war. He never asked how the demise of the first had been tied to the second, and she had never told him. If he suspected as much, they both judged it best not to dwell on what could not be undone.

Instead, Matthew spoke of _her_. Of her struggles to settle into the role of lady of the manor. Of his struggle to understand the woman to whom he had bound himself in the heady days of the war, not knowing if he would live to see the next leave. And unspoken amidst it all, the lack of a child after six years of marriage.

Mary had seen first hand the gulf that had grown between Matthew and Lavinia in recent years. They now seemed to operate independently of one another, amiable but separate.

It was a gulf into which she had been swept, despite all her best efforts to avoid the temptation.

"Why…why do feel the need to flee to America, Mary?" Matthew's voice was intent. "If being near here is unbearable now, I understand. I acted abominably, but must you leave the entire country?" His eyes bore into hers, looking for her true reasoning and intent. As if he understood that something more stirred beneath the surface.

"I promise you, Mary. I will support whatever decision you make, but please do not act rashly because of how I have acted."

"How _you_ have acted?" She answered harshly. " I acted too, Matthew, if I recall correctly."

Matthew closed his eyes at the memory, and she saw the heat rise in his cheeks. She felt her own cheeks flame at the memory. It had been one intimate conversation too many, a taking of one kind of liberty that had flowed into another. She still remembered the feel of the grass brushing the back of her neck and the dew collecting on her fevered forehead.

For that short period of time, she had been his wife. His Countess. His love. His sweet mumblings into her hair, his assurances of a love that had never died, she would treasure for the rest of her days.

She did not want him to apologize for what had happened. The only thing that made it acceptable that she had, once again, not acted virtuously was that it had been Matthew and that it had been done out of love. She did not want to hear his regrets, not now.

Matthew now met her gaze, the shared memory of their encounter unspoken. It gave her the strength to continue.

"I am leaving, Matthew. And I'm leaving as soon as possible. I need to make this journey now, before the winter both on the Atlantic and in America make it unfeasible. "

He held her gaze, some understanding now dawning in his eyes. "And may I ask why the need to do so now? And not in the spring?"

"I do not think…"she answered carefully, "that it will be in anyone's interest for me to still be at Downton in six months. That will be far too late to do any good."

The effect of her words were almost a physical blow, and she could see his chest sink as his lungs struggled for air.

"When?" He gasped, his face tortured with anguish.

"June."

There. It was done. And the devastation that she knew her news would bring was clear. Matthew's body was bent over, his head cradled in hands resting on shaking knees. Her heart went out to him, but she had spent her own weeks in the agony of suspecting the truth, and it was she alone who would have to build a new future for herself and their child.

"God…" He gasped in torment. "There must be some other way…" He looked up from his hands with eyes wild with panic.

"Are you wiling to divorce Lavinia?"

She knew the answer. She hadn't needed to ask – but perhaps she needed to hear his final choice before choosing to travel halfway across the globe to bear his child. Perhaps the only child he would ever have.

Silence stretched between them. He had made a choice years ago, and he would have to live with the consequences of that rash decision for the rest of his life because his sense of honor would not let him act otherwise. A sense of honor that deserted him when he had claimed his true love on a grassy field not two miles from Downton.

She broke the silence. "San Francisco is far enough away that I will hopefully, with the support of my cousins, be able to pass myself off as a widow and live a respectful enough but quiet life with my child."

"Do they know the truth?" 

"Some, but not the particulars. But, apparently, notoriety is the new virtue in this changing world. And Americans always are on the cutting edge of these things." Bitterness crept into her last sentence, compromising her own ambiguous feelings about moving to the land of her mother's kin.

"I have to…do something. This…this is my child." His voice was so filled with sorrow that she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms, to comfort him and find comfort in return.

Instead she just shook her head. "I don't…I think that it's best if we leave things as they are now, Matthew."

Mary stood, nervous energy and a desperate desire to flee before she somehow failed in her resolution propelling her forward. Matthew dumbly stared at her, devastation writ large on his face.

"I don't know when…or if… we will see each other again. But please know, I do not regret a moment of what happened between us." She turned, not wishing to see if she saw doubt or regret in return, but a strong hand wrapped around her wrist abruptly stopped her.

"Mary!" So much was captured in that single word, her name on his lips.

There was nothing more after that except the feel of his mouth on hers. She allowed herself to savor the taste of him briefly, before gently pushing him away. No words were spoken, but she knew she would never forget the burning look in his eyes as she backed away from him and from the only home she had ever known.


End file.
